This invention relates to improvements in railroad cars for protecting operating and service personnel from injury and, in particular, to a handrail which can be raised from a retracted position to an extended, operative position adjacent a walkway on the car used during loading and unloading operations.
Railway hopper cars have been employed for years to transport particulate and granular materials such as grain. Typically, a car is loaded or unloaded through the use of overhead chutes that extend through one or more hatches in the top of the car that have been opened for loading or unloading purposes. The covers used to close these hatches are relatively heavy, on the order of 100 pounds per cover, and thus considerable manual effort is required to open and close the hatches from the exterior walkways provided for that purpose along the top of the car. As these walkways are totally exposed and do not have guard railings, a considerable hazard is presented when handling the heavy hatch covers as slipping and falling from the walkway could result in severe injury or death.
It is believed that guard railings or other protective structures have not previously been employed on railroad cars due to the additional clearance that would have to be provided along the railroad. In the United States, railroad cars must comply with the clearance requirements of the American Association of Railroads (AAR), which makes it especially difficult to provide an effective railing that will not interfere with passage of the car through a railroad tunnel. Although a retractable railing which could be stored during transit would appear to be a solution to the problem, the space below a walkway is limited due to the configuration of the car body which compounds the problem by restricting the available space to store the railing.